Integral terminal board-cable assemblies of the above type have been known for some time, and, similarly integral plug-cable assemblies, which have also been known for many years, the plastic terminal board is molded onto the end portion of the supply cable comprising the terminals and respective contacts.
For household appliance manufacturers and user devices in general, such assemblies have the advantage of simplifying the wiring of the appliance, by simply clicking the terminal board inside its seat and connecting the user device directly to the terminal board connectors already positioned and supplied by the cable.
On the other hand, "integral" assemblies of this sort also involve two major drawbacks. First is the difficulty involved in molding the terminal board onto the cable, which, to ensure the necessary adhesion, means prefitting the cable with a polyamide insert, thus resulting in a fairly long production cycle and high end cost. Second, unless the maker also produces electric cable, is the impossibility on the part of the maker of achieving adequate scale economy, and the dependence of the user device on one supplier, which inevitably means higher cost, only partly compensated for by the lower cost of wiring the appliance.
To overcome the above drawbacks, Italian Utility Model Patent Application No. T092U000302 was filed by the present Applicant on Dec. 22, 1992. This patent application describes an integral assembly in which a cable is connected to terminals comprising blade contacts, which are clicked through seats in the base of a plastic terminal board having a hinged cover which clicks onto and grips the base so as to grip the cable inside a cable seat through the base and thereby cover the terminals and respective contacts in a fluidtight manner on the opposite side opposite to the through seats.
The terminal board, cable and contacts may therefore be produced separately and then fitted together to obtain an integrated unit substantially equivalent, in terms of mounting to the appliance, to a co-molded unit. The degree of safety, however, of such a unit is inferior to that of known co-molded units, by allowing the cover to be opened even after the unit is mounted to the appliance, for example, by removing the fasteners, which may be screws, click-in pins, or the like, securing the cover to the base. On the other hand, sealing the cover permanently to the base, for example, by means of adhesives, or subsequently incorporating the base and cover in a layer of resin are not practical solutions to the problem on account of the production problems involved and the cost of the necessary equipment.